First Day Musings -- Look UP!

It has always been a contridiction to me that our First Parents, Adam and Eve, were created to garden, but also were created to LOOK UP to Our Father. But, they fell from grace and had to begin looking down with every step because their way was no longer smooth nor safe.

Think of it, they walked in the cool of the day in the garden and talked with Our Father. But, once they fell, they no longer walked in the cool of the day and chatted. Oh no. Now, they had to look down because, while they were blessed with life and the opportunity to come to the Father, they had to watch where they were going because it was rocky and thorny -- no longer smooth and clear.

I thought of this as Shelly and I planted in the garden yesterday. Don was tilling. Every little bit, one of us had to stop, pick up a stone or rock, and then toss it to the side. As I plant, I always ask that the seeds be blessed and multiply to provide food for us and those we share it with. But, I am looking down and not up. And, while I am chatting with my Father, we were certainly not in the cool of the day!

To me, the greatest loss of the fall is not only the separation of us from God and being able to look up in our work, but also the fact that we have to earn our way looking down. We miss so much by looking down, don't we? Sighing as we catch the beauty of the sky as wisps of clouds skirt across; wondering over the streaks of light captured in the moisture of a coming storm; or admiring the joy of a solitary bird as it dips and soars, catching the wafts of air currents. Truthfully, how many of us stop each day, look up, and admire those wonderful things above us, created for our joy and pleasure?

Let's make it a promise; let's agree to stop in our day, look up and, perhaps, sing to ourselves these lovely words:

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
--- Thomas Ken